allowances for your....current situation."
"Don't do me any goddam favors," I said. (Obviously she hadn't gotten the word that I
don't take that kind've crap from women anymore.)
"The problem," she went on, "is that aside from how important your mother is to you I
hardly know anything about you---your true personality, your background and values, and, well, everything. Maybe if I knew more about you I'd be more....well, uh, I don't know.... comfortable, hm? Like just what is it you do, nowadays...."
"Do?"
"For a living. Since your injury I mean. What do you do, what does your father do,
what kind of car do you drive....that sort of thing."
That did it. Now maybe you can see just how lousy my luck was running right about then. All I can say is it's a hell of a crummy world where you can't get a decent babe to roll over unless you drive a decent car (My car happens to be a radically primo Porsche 930 Turbo with a five-speaker stereo system, but I sure as hell wasn't going to tell her that.). Man. I remember how my mind started wandering. All I could think about is everything I'd just been going through, back home, and now this, this....But hey, I don't want you to get the wrong idea. This thing isn't about women. It's about what happens, or can happen, to the "beloved professional athlete" in this great goddam country of ours. Let's just say that getting away from L.A.'s gold digging, leather skirted, outrageously juicy females who friggin' disappear off the face of the earth was a welcome fringe benefit of my journey. But this thing isn't about women.
note to editor : is this last part too wordy?
Anyway, for about thirty seconds I just sat there and looked at her. What kind of car do
you drive....good grief. I knew right then and there I was fighting a losing battle. The
problem was that I couldn't very well ask the fat black guy to give me back my seat.
"Listen up, young woman. I've suddenly become very tired," I said, slouching down in my seat, closing my eyes. I pocketed my hands. And I made my face look as bored and
disinterested as possible: "I'm gonna try and get some sleep. As a matter of fact, I plan to
sleep away as much of this stupid flight as I can, so I'd appreciate it very much if you'd make like a good little mouse and be as quiet as possible. Okay?"
"What?"
Naturally I didn't open my eyes.
"I said I'd appreciate it if you'd kindly keep it zipped shut while I'm trying to sleep. I can assure you I will not feel like talking the entire trip, and so, in the name of common courtesy to a fellow passenger, I respectfully request that you do not attempt to engage me in any trivial conversations simply to alleviate your boredom. We live in exciting times. If you're bored, read your magazines."
"Are you---"
"If you have a question for a passing stewardess, such as, say, where to go for your bags once we reach Heathrow, that I will understand. But as to any other potentially annoying disturbances, I only hope you will resist the temptation to speak and thus respect my wishes. That's not too much to ask, is it?" (That's sort've a mouthful, and it's been awhile, you can imagine how hard it is to remember all the details, so naturally I'm paraphrasing.)
"You've got to be kidding!"
"Shh! Please. You don't wanna get off to a bad start."
I bet she was priceless. Her expression I mean. For a minute it felt like she might smack me or something, but I didn't peek. Women.
"And to think I was actually becoming....curious about you!" she finally said. Sure.
Sure you were. You would have thought she could've come up with a better comeback than that. "Nice meeting you, too---and thanks for everything," I think I said.
That was that. Boy I wish I could've seen her face, because I could feel it steaming right through my eyelids. She didn't say "boo" the rest of the trip. Women. No matter where you go, you can't get away from the unholy by-god fact of them. And me, I had to sit there in total silence next to this curvy blonde babe for twelve friggin' hours. What a waste. I mean she was one hot ticket, believe me. And for me to intentionally deep-six an eventual guaranteed piece of ass, especially an ass like that, well, it only goes to show what kind of a mood I was in. Thinking back, it might've been a good idea if I could've controlled my temper. Okay, okay---I know it would've been a good idea. At least then I'd have her phone number. Thinking about it now, it's still kind've a confused blur. I guess you can tell she got to me a little bit. Nothing I can do about it now, though. Win a few, lose a few. But hey, there's always the chance I'll bump into her around town; that is, when I finally make it back home....
So that's the story of how I managed not to get laid on the flight over. But what was I
supposed to do? When a guy is under pressure he doesn't always make the right decision.
It's like in a ballgame---sometimes you choke. But at the time all I was doing was reacting
honestly to my emotions, just as honestly as I am attempting to re-create them for you now,
after the fact. And remember, she was the one who actually screwed up. She was the one
who started asking about cars. I mean it's not like it was my fault or anything.
Hell, you people got to remember that it's been weeks since I was on that bucket. I mean who can remember anything exactly?
Two
Okay. So here I am in London. Or at least I think I am.
Allow me to explain. Y'see, even though it's my book, and you'd therefore expect that I, naturally, would be the one controlling the ebb and flow of its contents, I, in sad fact, have no friggin' idea just how much of this thing you're actually getting. I really don't. And furthermore, I frankly have no idea as to exactly in what order you're getting it, assuming you're getting more or less all of it which as I said I'm not exactly sure. It all has to do with this little arrangement my "learned and esteemed" New York editor talked me into. This whole crazy thing is his idea, including doing the book in the first place. I met him at a bar in midtown Manhattan last March. My old team, the Los Angeles Clippers, was in town to play the Knicks, and I'd flown in for the weekend just to catch the game, maybe sort've hang out with some of my old Knick buddies, but mainly, to be perfectly honest, to see if I could talk the coach into giving me my old spot back on the roster. The Clips hadn't been doing very well (they never do very well), and at the time I had it in my head that I could convince the powers-that-be that what they really needed to help pull the team out of its slump was a guy who could shoot the "three"; which is to say the 3-point jump shot. Seemed a simple enough solution to me. I mean hey, it wasn't as if the Clippers were tearing up the league. They were right smack in last place, as usual. Christ, they've never even had a friggin' winning season! And why they decided to move up from San Diego and compete with the lordly Lakers for L.A.'s fan support is a mystery to me....Anyway, after the game, which naturally we lost, me and a couple of the Knick players were doing our drinking at this glitzy upscale place near 57th and Broadway, and that's where this exalted man of letters and I first met. I actually liked him at first. For an old guy he didn't look much over forty, he was the only guy in the place with a decent suit on, and his hair was the by-god picture of that too slick, too sharp, "ultra distinguished" look that comes from it being either black with flecks of gray or prematurely gray dyed half-black, I can never tell which. We got to talking off at the end of the bar, and y'know he seemed genuinely interested in my sad plight. Really. He wanted to hear all about the circumstances surrounding my "abrupt departure" from the team, how the other players planned it out, how everybody in the organization then blew this knee thing way out've proportion to support the conspiracy, he wanted to hear about what I had been going through trying to latch onto another club before the end of the season, how I was holding up under the so-called strain, everything. I guess he sort've got a kick out've how everything seemed to fall apart all at once, after I got out of the hospital. He even showed a remarkable degree of interest in how my girl
friend, my girlfriend since UCLA, the one I mentioned earlier (assuming you got it), how she cleverly picked this exact frickin' moment of my life to practice her hose-monster of the century routine. In fact, thinking back, he seemed more interested in that than anything....I mean from all the questions he asked about her, you would've thought this miserable girl was the by-god greatest friggin' person in the history of the whole bloomin' blinkin' world! But my guess is he was probably just unusually horny for sweet young girls. Anyway, after awhile he introduced himself, told me what he did, told me how he was always looking for a good story to put before the public, especially the "unusual human interest" story, whatever that means, told me how fabulously successful he was at doing it, he even told me the names of several of my more famous NBA ex-colleagues who had published their autobiographies with his help. I was impressed. I remember telling him that truthfully I didn't think it would be any problem at all writing a book myself, especially about myself, if I put my mind to it, and that was my undoing. He "convinced" me that I should do the writing myself, seeing as how I was relatively unknown outside Los Angeles, rather than have someone else tell the story for me. We "agreed" that it was the unusual quality of my story, rather than my not-so-famous name, that might possibly get people to buy it. Frankly it had been a long time since somebody had shown such an interest in me! I just got the feeling that he really understood. At least as much as any outsider could understand. And of course it was he who "suggested" I take a long trip of some kind, which accounts for my leaving the country. At first he seemed like such a pleasant, regular guy. Even let me take his barstool when the joint crowded up, because I'd let it slip how much it hurt my knee to stand in one place too long.
Little did I know, at the time, that as a dictator of sorts he could give lessons to the god damn Ayatollah!
But the point of all this is how he managed to wrest from me control of my own damn life's story. I got pretty drunk that night, and I admit I probably did a lot of bragging, talking trash like how I always thought I had an aptitude for writing and storytelling and stuff like that, and so naturally it wasn't any friggin' problem at all for an experienced seasoned smoothie like this character to fill my head with all sorts of crazy ideas about how for all we knew I was probably the greatest undiscovered literary talent since, well, I guess at least since that guy who writes those neat dirty limericks on bathroom walls. I mean he really got me going. I even told him about some of the creative writing classes I had taken at UCLA (which I took on the advice of my high school English teacher, who thought she saw a spark of something in a short-story I was tinkering around with, and who, more importantly, had just about the plumpest, juiciest rack of boobs I ever saw), and I know he got a kick out of some of my X-rated stories from my three-plus years on the road in the NBA (I call it the "motel and massage parlor circuit"), as well as my "shocking revelations" of what they really give some players to get them to play when they're hurt, and next thing you know he's buying all my beer and slipping me his card and calling me every other week from New York asking me "when was I going to get on with my life" and get started on the very masterpiece of literary sports journalism you are at this very moment enjoying. I'm convinced that it was listening to me prattle on and on about what really goes on---from an insider's point of view, that is---that made him want me to do it myself. And god, how he could talk! After awhile he began to get me pretty worried about my future, at least about my future outside the sport, and so finally, one day during summer camp, when it became clear that the Clippers weren't going to allow me to compete for a spot on the squad in the fall, I called him up and told him he had another horse in his literary stable. From that day to this, it seems like my crappy situation has gotten just a little bit crappier with every passing second.
It was like I'd sold my goddam soul to the Devil. The man assumed virtual total control over what was left of my tangled-up, screwed-up life. He had me signing endless contracts and agreements which I still don't fully understand, immediately became grouchy as a sobered-up drunk, quickly fell into this incredibly-annoying habit of giving me random orders, made me present him with not one, not two, but three ten-page outlines of the last ten years of my life---professional and personal---so he could "get a feel" for what he wanted to do with the story line, then finally ordered me to take this extended foreign vacation to give the narrative "scope", and in general adopted a hands-on approach to editing both my work and my day-to-day life that has had him doing pretty much everything for me but wipe my ass. Turns out, though, that he's a pretty famous editor and publisher at that. A real big wheel. I must admit he scared the snot out of me a little bit, all his big talk of how if he ever dumps me I'll "never get a book published in this town", as if that would really be the end of the world. You'll never know how close I came to blowing the whole thing off. But cash is cash. You guessed it. I knuckled under like a true pussy. And within a couple weeks he had me booked on a TWA jet to London.
(Besides. I figured that while I was in England my agent, my roundball agent that is,
would be busy trying to line up a spot for me on some NBA team other than the Clippers, or maybe even a gig with one of those pro teams in Italy, which is the going thing right now with disgruntled NBAers. But, as you will soon discover, the only problem with that plan was having to trust my lousy friggin' agent.)
Which brings me back to my principle lament, our mutual problem; exactly how is this thing---or should I say how will this thing be---organized? Naturally I wanted simply to write the whole damn thing when I was good and ready and mail the entire manuscript in all at once, and not even start it until I get back to L.A. of course, naturally, but somehow this silver-tongued-and-I-admit-amazingly-clever editor of mine managed to convince me to mail and/or cable him a series of regular little cutesy-pie dispatches from all over England. He said he wanted to be able to read "the essence of" my thoughts as both the thoughts and the "enveloping action" of those thoughts were actually happening (whatever the hell that means). He said the story would "ring truer" if I mailed it in piece by piece. He said it would be best to date some of them and purposely leave some of them undated. And he said I could fill in all the gaps later, when I got back. He also felt compelled to add that he knew a lot more about the publishing business than I did, who doesn't?, knew a lot more about good writing than I did, so what?, and that it would be best for all concerned---this being my first crack at a book--- if I left petty, insignificant details like what goes in he book, and in what order, to him. (In saying that, it just occurred to my rather slow-working brain that if I know this guy's ego there's not much chance you'll get any of this, I'm sure it's the last thing he would want any've you to know, which means I've no doubt been rambling on here for no goddam reason! But what the hell. Feels good. And orders are orders, right?...)
Anyway, I practically begged him to let me stay home and churn the whole thing out at once, but He decided, in His infinite wisdom, that the story needed, get this, the "detached, reflective authority and pathos" that distance from my troubles would supposedly give it. And that's really the way he talks, too.
Hang on, there's more. He even suggested that he might want to go over my copy as it came in, make a few "selected" changes and alterations, "punch it up a little" he said, and it was there that I drew the line. I told him that I didn't mind so much if he didn't use everything I sent him, after all I'm trying to keep this thing reasonably short, or that he be the one to put it in order and things like that, but I want to assure all of you, right here and now, that I made god damn sure he understood that everything he did elect to ultimately include be my words; and my words alone. What's the point in writing a book if it winds up being some other joker's words? I remember saying. Especially the only stupid book I'll ever write about me. Tell you the truth, I was a little surprised at how easily he agreed. (But knowing him, I'm sure you won't be getting these last few sentences; or this one. Or the next one. Which is to say this one. Don't hold me back, no
w! I'm on a roll. Too bad. I hate you.)
But can you see my problem? I really have no idea exactly how much of this gripping true-to-life adventure you are being allowed to enjoy. Or even in what order. So I want you to understand something. Since I have very little control over what happens to my dispatches after they reach New York I'm just going to shoot crap and go ahead and write this thing in chronological order, talk to you about things in chronological order, mail in my various dispatches in chronological order, and therefore assume you're eventually going to get it, more or less, in chronological order. And if you don't get it more or less in chronological order, and since many of the statements I will make will be couched under the literary assumption that you are getting it in chronological order, I'm just sort've hoping that you will be smart enough to figure it out anyway and sort've absorb it in chronological order. Okay then, chronological order. July to whenever {January; ed. note}. I got no choice. This way I know I've done my job, and I know it's not my fault.
And as for which passages were: 1. Cabled in, or 2. Mailed in as they happened (or as I "thought" them), or 3. Filled in after the fact to tie the story together (like this?) you'll just have to be a clever little reader and figure out which is which for yourself.
Okay. So here I am in London.
Or should I say Heathrow Airport. Heathrow is about a half hour west of "The City" (yes, the natives are just as egocentric as New Yorkers or San Franciscans in that respect), and at the time that's as close as I intended to get. I'd been to London before, for two weeks in the summer of 1980, when our esteemed government, in its infinite wisdom, saw fit to boycott the Moscow Olympics. Just because the Russians are more up-front than we are about the crooked stuff they do. Y'know I wonder who came up with the idea, in the first place, that boycotting a track meet and a swim meet and a bunch of ballgames and boxing matches was going to change the course of history and alter "world opinion". Did our government really think that killing the lifelong dream of hundreds of young people, who worked their whole lives for the chance to represent their stupid country against the rest of the world in the spirit of fair play and maybe learning to get along a little better with regard to more important stuff, was going to do anything but turn those young people off to their government forever? I mean do the Russians care if they don't get to see their clumsy goofy hoopsters get blown off the court by our fast break? Of course not. Then why should we? Politicians....I'm sorry, but I think Farmer Jim just friggin' flat out missed the boat on this one. Probably explains why he was blown out in the elections later that same year....
The Basketball Expatriate Page 3
